Information processing systems, such as laptop computers, tablets, desktop computers, etc., require data storage mediums for storing the software and associated data to operate. These data storage mediums are typically referred to as a hard drive or hard disk drive (HDD). Conventional hard drives typically include a sealed aluminum box that has a filtered air-vent. Inside the box of a conventional hard drive are electronics that direct a read/write head or heads held aloft by a spindle arm and control the motor which rotates magnetic medium platters (“hard disks”). The hard drive's driver electronics contain the instructions for recording data onto the hard disks and for translating magnetic patterns into bytes when data is requested by the CPU.
Recent technology in the data storage medium has resulted in a new type of drive, called a solid-state drive (SSD). SSDs, unlike HDDs do not require a magnetic disk, but instead utilize integrated circuit assemblies as memory to store data. The read/write speeds of SSDs are much faster than HDDs, and their physical size is much smaller.
Conventional computer architecture has one or more data storage mediums which a user can access at any given time. The user can see each of the data storage mediums through the interface of the operating system running on the information processing system. Even if there are multiple data storage drives in a single given computer, each drive is typically accessible by the user. This architecture may be undesirable in certain circumstances. For example, certain data may contain sensitive material and a user may want to prevent other users from having access thereto. And each individual disk drive is typically visible by simply viewing the internal configuration of the computer or via a scanning device, such as X-ray. Thus, the presence of a storage medium, and sometimes its contents, is typically easily identified.